Site Updated!

Welcome to our new site! Because we have such a beautiful kid, we decided it was time to move our stuff over to a site that has no connection to our last name, just to guard against the crazies. Sad, isn't it? Anyway, this new format will be much easier for us to update, so you can anticipate that we'll be updating a lot more often and posting A LOT more pictures.

The other big news is that we splurged on an account at Flickr. It's a huge photo sharing tool, incidentally started by a bunch of Vancouverites, that allows us to upload a virtually unlimited number of pictures. It's also a cool place to check out...you can see photos from people all over the world. Some of the pictures are amazing! We like it because we can upload lots of pictures and not have to worry about eating up too much space (our old site was huge, and we were going to have to start taking pictures down soon). The other nice thing is that pictures are very high quality, so you can print them right from the site without too much fuzziness (should keep the grandparents happy!).

We've transferred a large selection of photos of Amanda onto Flickr - most of the ones from the old site (although we may have missed a few), as well as some different ones. And because of the large upload capacity, we will probably be posting at least a few new pictures every week. (Ya right - like Jen can restrain herself to only a few a week!!). You can easily link to our entire collection of photos on Flickr by clicking the photo badge on the top right. The only downside - we can't post videos on Flickr, so no videos have yet been posted. We'll figure out a way to do this soon.

So how can you stay updated with the news from our corner of the universe, and all the new pictures of the world's cutest girl? (No bias at all!!). If you use an RSS aggregator, like newsgator (Jen's choice) or Google Reader (Jeff's), you can add our site's address to your feed list and you will automatically see all the updates.

But, if you're not a nerd like us, feel free to drop us an email and we'll be happy to send you a quick email whenever the site is updated. Just be prepared for lots of emails! :)

Please let us know what you think of the new site! We've set up a special email address for this site, again so our last name is invisible (jenniferandjeffrey@gmail.com). All emails to this address will automatically be forwarded to Jen.

One more note...if you do notice anything on this site that gives away our last name, please let us know so we can fix it!

Monthly Birthday Portraits

2 Years!!
Originally uploaded by JenJeff.

All of Amanda's "birthday portraits" (the photos we take of her every month on her rocking chair) are now in one set on Flickr. Each time we add a new one we'll add a new post to the blog, which will link you to the entire set.

Not-quite-22 months update

It has been ages since we've updated Amanda's page! It has been a very busy and stressful few months, but things are finally calming down a bit. Amanda is continuing to learn a zillion new things every day - it is amazing to watch her! She talks like crazy now...it is hard to imagine that a couple of months ago she was hardly saying any words. Although we haven't counted since we made the list below, she must be well over 200 or 250 words now. She knows all her animals (even strange ones, like hedgehog and peacock), her colours, and her shapes. She also knows tons of foods, names of everyone in our family and most of her friends, and all her clothes; she can name almost anything around the house, and she talks along with her videos and can "read" many of her books without us! (Well, the main words on every page, anyway). It is just incredible how quickly she has picked everything up. She started at her new daycare at the end of January and has adjusted so well - she loves to go to "Nancy's house" and often wakes up chattering away about her friends there and what she's going to be doing. It has turned out to be a nice treat to have her so close to home, as we can walk her to and from daycare when the weather is nice. Of course, the walk takes about 3 minutes without her but at least 20 minutes with her, as she stops to look at everything along the way! She is still a great eater, and most other parents of toddlers are jealous to find out that her favourite foods are...vegetables!! We have to feed her meat and rice/pasta first, because as soon as we put the veggies on her plate that's all she will eat. She's also developed a bit of a sweet tooth...so much for not giving her too much sweet stuff! Of course she only gets treats once in awhile. Her tantrums have abated quite a bit in the past several weeks, probably because she is getting so much better at communicating so her frustration is much less. That's not to say she doesn't have her moments, though! Things have been very busy around home the past few months but she has managed very well, although she misses her Lola and can't wait for her to come home from the hospital! Jen has also started a new job, only a 20 minute drive from home (instead of over an hour!), so that has also helped our family manage more time together. Every minute is precious! These past few days of sunshine have made us look forward even more to the summer months when we can spend more time outside!

19 months

The big news these days is words! Amanda is a word-learning machine - she has at least a few new ones every day. By her 19 month birthday, here are some of the words she knows (the ones we can remember off the top of our heads, anyway!):

Mama ~ Dada ~ done ~ gone ~ bye ~ hi ~ boom ~ whoa ~ down ~ book ~ baby ~ milk ~ more ~ yogurt ~ bread ~ shoes ~ stuck ~ up ~ Josh (from daycare) ~ duck ~ lion ~ monkey ~ arm ~ eye ~ bib ~ ball ~ bonk ~ balloon ~ beep ~ bubbles ~ rain/raining ~ hot ~ cold ~ "where are you?" ~ "caw caw" for bird ~ bunny ~ lambie ~ "EIEIO" ~ kitty ~ home ~ night-night ~ morning ~ dark ~ light ~ moon ~ star ("gar") ~ Cheerios ~ cookie ~ mine ~ bear ~ dirt ~ yuck ~ yum ~ spoon ~ broccoli ~ bum ~ chicken ~ "moo moo" for cow ~ "baa" for sheep ~ Grandma ~ socks ~ sun ~ car ~ "achoo" for bless you ~ hat ~ cup ~ toot! ~ poop ~ her own made-up word for thank you ~ whee ~ oh oh ~ ho ho ho

17 month update

Amanda is continuing to learn new words...new ones include "down", "book", "yuck", and a word that sounds like "buck" but that we really hope is "bonk" since it's a little early to start with swearing! We have started our Waterbabies 2 lessons and they are going well, although between making sure she gets an early nap to avoid screaming fits in the water, and giving her a bath to get the chlorine out of her hair afterwards, the lessons seem to eat up most of our Saturdays. Funny enough, she insists on lying on her stomach in the bath like she is doing a front float, even though she resists it in the swimming pool. We are working on blowing some bubbles but so far she mostly just drinks the water! Yuck! Her favourite part of the lessons is sitting under the waterfall afterwards, with the water running over her shoulders. She will even jump down off the ledge and into my arms, although it's hard to get her to leave the ledge since she loves sitting there so much! In the past several weeks Amanda has figured out how to kiss, and treats Mommy and Daddy to kisses quite frequently. She also gives great big hugs and will run into our arms from across the room. Amanda now has a totxal of 10 teeth plus one more almost about to break through. She is sleeping very well - only occasionally does she wake up, and even then she is able to get herself back to sleep within a minute or two. We are getting excited about this Christmas, although we're a little nervous about what Amanda will do to our Christmas tree! It should be fun to see how she reacts to all the decorations. On the weekend, we took her back to Toybox Studio for some portraits - remember the beautiful angel picture from last year? We can't wait to get the pictures back - hopefully by next month we will be able to post them!